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Lamprey River elementary school options presented in Raymond

By GRETYL MACALASTERUnion Leader CorrespondentMay 07. 2013 10:26PMRAYMOND - On May 15 the Lamprey River Elementary School Building Committee will make a recommendation to the school board about a new home for the elementary school.

Three options were presented during a sparsely attended public meeting on Tuesday. Two of those options are on land near the high school and the third option is privately-owned property off Main Street.

The committee has been working for over a year on a proposal to deal with the currently undersized elementary school. The original plan called for a renovation and addition, but in January, the committee learned that a town ordinance regarding the floodplain in which the school sits would make that prohibitive.

So they began looking at other possibilities, narrowing it down to the final three options presented to residents on Tuesday.

The committee hopes to go out to bid on the project later this month, with a goal of bringing a recommendation to the school board around September. If the school board approves, a proposal will be presented to voters on the March 2014 ballot.

Of the two options at the high school, one calls for a school facility all on one level, and a second would make it a split-level, saving almost $1 million in site preparation costs.

The third site would require purchasing the private property, and creating a nearly 1,000 foot access road.

The plan is to build an 80,000-square-foot building with a capacity for about 750 students and a full-size gymnasium.

The committee is estimating $16 million in construction costs plus site preparation costs. Additionally, if one of the two high school property options are chosen, they need to factor in about $62,700 to create a second access road.

If the private property option is chosen, the purchase price will also have to be considered. Currently, the committee is estimating that to be about $795,000 based on the seller's asking price, although no formal negotiations have taken place.

The three estimates range from $18.9 million to $20.7 million.

State school building aid is an issue in the process, and any proposal sent to voters would be contingent on the district receiving school building aid from the state.